Thursday, 29 July 2010

Day 68 Bridge Bay to Canyon Village - Yellowstone National Park

We set the alarm for 6am but it was 0.5 degrees centigrade and so we decided to snooze the alarm and finally got up at 8.30am! We packed up and went to the marina for wake up coffee and read the weather report which is rather dreary for the next few days. As we left the campground a deer was grazing with the biggest antlers we have seen so far and it posed nicely for a photo.

We headed back up the road to Fishing Bridge then carried on North where we got held up in road works. As we were waiting to follow the pilot car another couple of cycle tourists caught up with us and we rode together to the Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron. On the way we cycled past a solo bison (buffalo) on the rode side, I was slightly concerned as there were no cars to hide behind but the lady we were riding with went straight past texting at the same time so I figure I have been worrying too much!

We took the 2/3 mile walk around the mud volcanoes and watched the steam rising and the mud bubbling. The whole area was very geothermal and stank of rotten eggs! We continued on our own through Hayden Valley where we came across a whole heard of bison but not much else. We followed a river for a while and saw a pelican and a beaver but were not quick enough on the camera unfortunately. We went straight to the campground at Canyon Village and set up tent. We had lunch and offloaded our bags then feeling light on the bikes we went sight seeing for another 10miles not included in the 20 miles recording A to B.

We went to the upper falls loop to see the upper water falls of Yellowstone River and then took the loop road to the lower falls and artists point which has to be my favourite part of Yellowstone so far. The colours in the rocks were awesome and the canyon was immense, we could have stared into it all day. We took uncle tom’s hike down into the canyon to see the lower falls close up and climbed the 328 steps back up. With legs like jelly we took the north rim drive back to the campground stopping at inspiration point which was quite inspirational! We enjoyed dinner and ice cream at the village but best of all we got to charge all our electrics and have a shower that was 3 days over due! As we had to pay $3.25 for it we stayed in there so long we got prune fingers and Kris said that every minute meant the shower got cheaper!